The present invention generally relates to a documentation system for processing document data such as text data, graphic data, framed data and other data for edition. More particularly, the present invention is concerned with a consolidated document editing system suited profitably for the consolidated edition of such a document in which a plurality of different document data such as the text data, graphic data and other data to be processed through different procedures coexist in a mixed fashion, while displaying a print image of the document on a display screen for allowing given data to be edited on the image as displayed.
As a typical one of the documentation systems known heretofore, the work station described in A. Kamitani "Jstar Work Station" published, by Maruzen Co., Ltd. of Japan of Apr. 25, 1986 is mentioned. In this work station, the document data such as text, graphic and other data are allocated by employing frames enclosing the data, whereon the data within the frames are edited on a frame basis. During the edition, one page of the document is displayed on a display screen in the form of a print image (this display of the print image will hereinafter be also referred to as the layout display), whereby the edition of the individual document data can be performed by viewing simultaneously the print image. By selecting the frame with a cursor, the document data within the selected frame is subjected to the processing for edition. By moving the frame, the page layout can be easily modified or altered. However, in the case of the work station of the prior art, severe constraints are imposed on the use of the frame such that the frame must be of a rectangular form of exclusive nature, that only the frame for the graphic data permits another frame to be additionally placed therein, and so forth, as described in the literature cited above (see pages 134 and 135). At this juncture, the phrase "frame of exclusive nature" means the attribute of the frame which inhibits another frame from being nested therein.
On the other hand, in a documentation system disclosed in U.S. Ser. No. 122,783 filed on Nov. 19, 1987 in the name of inventors including some of those of the present application, the document data are allocated to regions (equivalent to the frames mentioned above), wherein the data are edited on a region basis. With this documentation system, the page layout can be altered easily by moving the regions or through like procedure. It is noted that the constraints imposed on the region are much mitigated when compared with the work station described in the first mentioned literature. Although the region is equally required to be of a rectangular form, it is possible to designate the exclusiveness or non-exclusiveness of any given region for the given text data. Furthermore, overlapping or superposition of the different regions can be realized utterly arbitrarily. However, edition on the layout display screen is impossible, differing from the work station disclosed in the first mentioned publication. In other words, edition of the data within each region requires the display of a display-destined region. Consequently, the operator or user can not confirm the layout as a whole in the course of the edition performed for a region.
In the first mentioned work station, the severe constraints as imposed provided an obstacle for the arbitrary or comfortable edition of the document, in addition to the problem that inputting of characters to the layout display being generated requires a lot of time for displaying the inputted characters, making impractical the character entry at a high speed. On the other hand, in the second mentioned documentation system, the edition procedure must be interrupted when the layout display has to be generated for the purpose of confirmation, alteration or correction of the page layout or for the edition of different data, making the manipulation very troublesome.